Moving over to activism, protests continue in Iraq. As with last weekend, protests continued. Friday, Alsumaria reported that
Shi'ite cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr issued
instructions Thursday for his followers which included that they take
part in peaceful actions and not damage private property, that they not
wear military uniforms while protesting and that they not carry
photos/placards/banners with photos of any political or religious
official.

If everyone is supporting the protests, who are the protests against? #Iraq

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In the image above, the top right is Moqtada al-Sadr and below him is
Ammar al-Hakim. Ammar is the leader of the Islamic Supreme Council in
Iraq. If he's now supporting the protesters, that would be a big switch
from his remarks earlier this week.

"If we
cannot provide enough electric power for the Iraqis, why don't the
families buy private generators?" asked an Iraqi official during a
recent press interview. It was similar to the quotation misattributed to
French Queen Marie Antoinette two hundred years ago; if the people
don't have bread, "Then let them eat cake."Again, like the French, the Iraqis revolted by igniting the uprising
in Basra. This spread around the country and this time the Iraqi leaders
could not blame the Yazidis, which they had done in the past when there
was activity in Iraq's western cities. Those who gathered in Iraq's
Tahrir and other Squares did not belong to a specific sect, race or
party. They gathered as Iraqis and expressed their anger at their rulers
who have subjected them to decades of failure, with neither justice nor
anything as mundane as new building projects. Instead, the leaders
conspired in the name of religion to loot the country's wealth and used
its resources to satisfy their evil desires and feed their obsession for
money and power.

al-Saadoun goes on to note how the Iraqi government went on to blame the
Islamic State with Ammar al-Hakim (leader of the Islamic Supreme
Council of Iraq) insisting that the protesters themselves were members
of the Islamic State. How very sad events have been for al-Hakim. His
relationship with the US has soured. He's not moved forward or higher
in the political hierarchy of Iraq. And now he's attacking the people
in a manner that recalls Nouri al-Maliki's ridiculous attacks on the
protesters.

So if Ammar is now supporting the protesters, that would actually be major news.

Regardless of whether Ammar supports them or not, the protesters were out in full force: